CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
July 6, 2011 – 12:53 p.m.
Limits of Trust Fund at Issue in Highway Bills
By Kathryn A. Wolfe, CQ Staff
The House and Senate are taking conflicting approaches to a surface transportation authorization, with Senate Democrats reluctantly putting forward a status quo two-year bill and House Republicans signaling they will do even less.
House Transportation and Infrastructure Chairman
Meanwhile,
“We are very hopeful this will be a bipartisan bill,” Boxer, D-Calif., said, adding that she intends to mark it up in “a couple weeks.”
When asked about possible sources for the extra revenue, Boxer largely deferred to the Finance Committee — although she suggested it could come from savings realized by drawing down troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said maintaining both wars costs $12 billion a month.
“We’re winding down [the wars],” she said. “It seems to me there’s a lot of funding available.”
Boxer said there are “a lot of ideas out there” for raising revenue, including directing a larger share of customs duties to infrastructure.
Mica suggested that his hands are tied by the House’s budget resolution (
“Have you seen how the House is voting?” Mica said. “They’d vote down a Mother’s Day resolution if it had extra spending on it.”
Private Sector Involvement
Instead, Mica says he has focused on expanding programs that leverage private sector dollars such as the Transportation Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act (TIFIA) program, which provides direct loans, loan guarantees and lines of credit for infrastructure projects of national and regional significance.
Mica’s bill would give the program about $6 billion over six years, which would result in about $60 billion in loans and $120 billion worth of construction projects.
Limits of Trust Fund at Issue in Highway Bills
He also said the bill would consolidate 100 transportation-related programs into 30 and would no longer require states to “spend highway funding on non-highway activities,” though they would be allowed to continue spending on such things as bicycle paths at their discretion, provided they meet performance measures.
Mica’s measure would focus on streamlining project approvals, including giving such authority to state agencies where practical.
The House bill will endorse the principle of infrastructure banks, but use a different approach than the one taken by the administration and the Senate.
Mica said his bill would direct funds to state infrastructure banks using traditional apportionment formulas. States that do not have an infrastructure bank would not receive any of this money.
The administration and some relevant senators prefer a national infrastructure bank that would steer funding toward large projects that cross state lines or are of national significance.
Mica said his approach would enable states not to have to come to Washington and pay “homage to the politicians here.”
His bill would prohibit the collecting of tolls on existing interstate highways but would allow it for additional lanes or roads built to carry more vehicles. It also would open up the federal highway right of way for public-private partnerships, although it was not clear whether that too would apply only to new roadways.
Factoring in 2012 Elections
The gap between the House and Senate approaches is large and potentially unbridgeable, at least in the atmosphere of an upcoming election.
But on Wednesday Mica seemed to suggest that the ultimate strategy may be to play a waiting game. He recounted how many in the House were ousted in 2010 in a wave of taxpayer anger over too much spending. “If anyone thinks that the same thing isn’t going to happen in the Senate . . . change is coming,” Mica said.
At a news conference Wednesday, Boxer also laid down a messaging marker against the budget plan put forward by House Budget Chairman
Boxer said if Ryan’s budget were followed, it would result in the loss of 490,627 highway construction jobs and almost 100,000 transit-related jobs.
She also released state-by-state job-loss totals of the sort that tend to get members’ attention. According to the list, the state that would suffer the biggest job loss is California at 43,489, with Texas next at 36,051.